What Is The Message Of This Year’s 1st Of May?
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 International Bulletin / Issue 198 / May 2019

The current state of the fascist Turkish state's regime crisis, which has been deepening under the AKP 's political-islamist fascist rule, is marked by the double burning facets: an economic crisis shaking the life of millions and a political crisis of a weakening dictatorship which gets more aggressive in its last days. Political freedoms have been abolished, democratic institutions and mechanisms liquidated, democrats and revolutionaries in the search for organizational channels to reach the working class and the oppressed face torture and jail, the Kurdish people are under the permanent danger of a colonialist war by the state. Over 600.000 workers and laborers lost their jobs within a year. Day by day the anger of the working class and oppressed against the fascist chief-regime is increasing.
Under these circumstances, the 1st of May, the day of unity, struggle and solidarity of the workers, has been celebrated with mass rallies and manifestations in the cities of Turkey and Kurdistan. In many cities, in some places even for the first time, people went to the squares with their demands concerning every aspect of life; even in the cities where AKP has a strong mass base, this atmosphere of unrest is quite visible. Even more masses participated in this year's rallies than last year and resisting trade unions get stronger among the workers who especially work at the sectors hit by the economic crisis most. The attempts of socialists and revolutionaries from various organizations, despite police attacks, to march on the historical Taksim square, which is the traditional 1st of May route which is now banned for any political activity, also expresses the rising will to resist within the mass movements.
All these mass mobilizations for the May Day across the country proved once again the search for a new path against fascism; as the masses have never submitted despite the fact that the fascist AKP ruled with massacres, terror and mass imprisonments to smash the rising democratic and revolutionary mass movements in the last 4 years after the Suruç massacre on 20 July 2015. But in the course of years the antifascist struggle weakened due to unprecedented state terror, whereas revolutionary forces in the cities and mountains tried to adapt to the total surveillance conditions, the antifascist masses hold on to have a breath but continue to express their demands in every possible moment of action, such as the 1st of May.
One of the reasons adding to this year's more crowded May Day rallies is the local election results. AKP's loss of municipalities of major and decisive cities like Istanbul and Ankara has been a source of moral and motivation for democratic forces in the whole country. But of course, any political gaining not won by the struggle of the masses in the streets can easily be taken back by the fascist rule. And that was what happened afterwards. AKP's enforced cancellation of the local elections and the announcement of reelections now challenge the antifascist forces in the whole country.
The opponent party in the Istanbul mayor elections, the chauvinist social democrat CHP , proves with every new challenge that they are a bourgeois reactionary party which contributes nothing to the antifascist war, but loss of energy and focus. It is obvious that within the basis of CHP there is an antifascist potential, which for example filled the streets right after the AKP's announcement of illegitimate reelections. However, this potential is misused by the CHP, which declared right after this announcement not to boycott, but to prepare for the reelections and called the people to keep calm and finish the ongoing protests in the streets. It wants the popular resistance to diminish by keeping the illusion of election victories alive. The objective anti-AKP and antifascist potential has to be realized in a revolutionary manner and this needs a determined and vanguard positioning of all the organized antifascist, democratic forces, especially within the HDP .
In this sense, the resistance started by the hunger strikers in the prisons with the vanguard action of HDP deputy Leyla Güven to break the fascist isolation policy on Kurdish people's leader Abdullah Öcalan plays a crucial role to defeat fascism. This resistance, which is carried out now by thousands of prisoners and activists also beyond the borders of Turkey, carries hope and determination, the will to fight to all the antifascist forces which suffer for years permanent attacks of the state. In this struggle, the mothers of hunger-striking prisoners play an important icebreaker role, too. Our moth-ers wrapped with the symbolic white scarves mobilize every day in front of the prisons and fill the streets to carry the voices of their children outside and to force the state to take a step. Whereas the hungerstrike goes on in a more determined way and 30 prisoners of PKK and PAJK turned their action into a death fast now, the resistance reached the first successes: After a short visit of his brother months ago, the state allowed attorneys of Abdullah Öcalan to visit him after years of nearly total isolation. But no following statement was made from the state and this seems nothing but a one-time step just to manipulate the resistance.
The conclusion of all the lessons in this period of antifascist struggle is that what matters is resistance. Revolutionary and democratic forces cannot trust in bourgeois parties like CHP, but on their own strength. The Erdoğan's chief-regime is in a deep crisis and with every desperate attempt to rescue its existence, more and more revolutionary opportunities will grow. The message of the 1st of May and the resistances around the hunger strikes is to unite the working class and the oppressed, to march forward against fascism and to hold up the flag of resistance and honor.
 

 

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What Is The Message Of This Year’s 1st Of May?
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 International Bulletin / Issue 198 / May 2019

The current state of the fascist Turkish state's regime crisis, which has been deepening under the AKP 's political-islamist fascist rule, is marked by the double burning facets: an economic crisis shaking the life of millions and a political crisis of a weakening dictatorship which gets more aggressive in its last days. Political freedoms have been abolished, democratic institutions and mechanisms liquidated, democrats and revolutionaries in the search for organizational channels to reach the working class and the oppressed face torture and jail, the Kurdish people are under the permanent danger of a colonialist war by the state. Over 600.000 workers and laborers lost their jobs within a year. Day by day the anger of the working class and oppressed against the fascist chief-regime is increasing.
Under these circumstances, the 1st of May, the day of unity, struggle and solidarity of the workers, has been celebrated with mass rallies and manifestations in the cities of Turkey and Kurdistan. In many cities, in some places even for the first time, people went to the squares with their demands concerning every aspect of life; even in the cities where AKP has a strong mass base, this atmosphere of unrest is quite visible. Even more masses participated in this year's rallies than last year and resisting trade unions get stronger among the workers who especially work at the sectors hit by the economic crisis most. The attempts of socialists and revolutionaries from various organizations, despite police attacks, to march on the historical Taksim square, which is the traditional 1st of May route which is now banned for any political activity, also expresses the rising will to resist within the mass movements.
All these mass mobilizations for the May Day across the country proved once again the search for a new path against fascism; as the masses have never submitted despite the fact that the fascist AKP ruled with massacres, terror and mass imprisonments to smash the rising democratic and revolutionary mass movements in the last 4 years after the Suruç massacre on 20 July 2015. But in the course of years the antifascist struggle weakened due to unprecedented state terror, whereas revolutionary forces in the cities and mountains tried to adapt to the total surveillance conditions, the antifascist masses hold on to have a breath but continue to express their demands in every possible moment of action, such as the 1st of May.
One of the reasons adding to this year's more crowded May Day rallies is the local election results. AKP's loss of municipalities of major and decisive cities like Istanbul and Ankara has been a source of moral and motivation for democratic forces in the whole country. But of course, any political gaining not won by the struggle of the masses in the streets can easily be taken back by the fascist rule. And that was what happened afterwards. AKP's enforced cancellation of the local elections and the announcement of reelections now challenge the antifascist forces in the whole country.
The opponent party in the Istanbul mayor elections, the chauvinist social democrat CHP , proves with every new challenge that they are a bourgeois reactionary party which contributes nothing to the antifascist war, but loss of energy and focus. It is obvious that within the basis of CHP there is an antifascist potential, which for example filled the streets right after the AKP's announcement of illegitimate reelections. However, this potential is misused by the CHP, which declared right after this announcement not to boycott, but to prepare for the reelections and called the people to keep calm and finish the ongoing protests in the streets. It wants the popular resistance to diminish by keeping the illusion of election victories alive. The objective anti-AKP and antifascist potential has to be realized in a revolutionary manner and this needs a determined and vanguard positioning of all the organized antifascist, democratic forces, especially within the HDP .
In this sense, the resistance started by the hunger strikers in the prisons with the vanguard action of HDP deputy Leyla Güven to break the fascist isolation policy on Kurdish people's leader Abdullah Öcalan plays a crucial role to defeat fascism. This resistance, which is carried out now by thousands of prisoners and activists also beyond the borders of Turkey, carries hope and determination, the will to fight to all the antifascist forces which suffer for years permanent attacks of the state. In this struggle, the mothers of hunger-striking prisoners play an important icebreaker role, too. Our moth-ers wrapped with the symbolic white scarves mobilize every day in front of the prisons and fill the streets to carry the voices of their children outside and to force the state to take a step. Whereas the hungerstrike goes on in a more determined way and 30 prisoners of PKK and PAJK turned their action into a death fast now, the resistance reached the first successes: After a short visit of his brother months ago, the state allowed attorneys of Abdullah Öcalan to visit him after years of nearly total isolation. But no following statement was made from the state and this seems nothing but a one-time step just to manipulate the resistance.
The conclusion of all the lessons in this period of antifascist struggle is that what matters is resistance. Revolutionary and democratic forces cannot trust in bourgeois parties like CHP, but on their own strength. The Erdoğan's chief-regime is in a deep crisis and with every desperate attempt to rescue its existence, more and more revolutionary opportunities will grow. The message of the 1st of May and the resistances around the hunger strikes is to unite the working class and the oppressed, to march forward against fascism and to hold up the flag of resistance and honor.